The housing stock in the Dunbar area of Vancouver has undergone significant change in the past five years. Originally a working class neighbourhood with many quite modest homes surrounded by lovely gardens, it is now a neighbourhood that 99% of the people working in Vancouver cannot afford because the replacement homes are built to the maximum footprint and cost millions. Greenspace has been reduced. Included on this website are photos of many (not all) of the disappeared houses.
View Teardowns in the Dunbar area of Vancouver, BC in a larger map

Demolitions West of the Dunbar Community Centre

Thursday, October 6, 2016

On a Quiet Street

You would not realize that this house was built in 1927 because renovations to "modernize" it must have reduced the size of the windows, and it probably had a wood shake siding. West 26th Avenue on the west side of Dunbar is only two blocks long and is a quiet street leading to Chaldecott Park. The first photo was taken in the summer of 2013 shortly after the house was sold. In the second photo taken August 3, 2016 shortly before the demolition, the empty lot to the right is visible, the former home of 3737 West 26th. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo of that house. Both of these lots are now construction sites.




Houses of this age were built with solid lumber. It is sad that these structures are considered only for demolition. If we had different zoning rules and less of a bottom line mentality, these two lots with a total 100 foot frontage, could contain several family- and neighbourhood-friendly townhouses, badly needed in the Dunbar area. There could be 12+ persons living there instead of zero.

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